Clausewitz, Conflict, And Human Nature - War As A Permanent Feature Of Human Society

Clausewitz said that war is the continuation of diplomacy by other means.  Every empire, nation, kingdom, and regime has kept their armories full, their armies at the ready, and their populations prepared for war, for it has always been an inevitability. 

 

Wars have been a constant since the first human settlements, growing in size and number as technology improved, as geopolitics became more complex, and as the prize became more valuable. The Trojan War, The Mongol Invasions, the Peloponnesian War, the Hundred Years War, the Greco-Persian War, the Punic Wars, the War of the Roses, and the Taiping Rebellion are just a few.  World War I and World War II were continuations of the trend, and lesser wars - Iraq, Afghanistan, Israel, and now Iran - never miss a beat. 

Wars are permanent feature of human society and will continue ad perpetuam, ad infinitum. In fact there is no better expression of the innate, hardwired, ineluctable forces of human nature than war. Until and unless that violent, aggressive, territorial, and self-interested nature is no more, wars will continue. 

A sequela of this axiom is that peace has only resulted in two ways - first, if one nation, empire, dynasty, or kingdom has complete and utter military and economic control, i.e. Pax Romana; and second, if two nations are equally matched, i.e. the Soviet Union and the United States during the Cold War.  Otherwise conflicts, skirmishes, wars by proxy or by frontal assault will continue unchecked and unabated. 

There is no difference between playground antics of toddlers - 'That truck mine!' - marital squabbles, municipal disputes, regional conflicts and all-out wars.  They all arise from the same valuation, desire for hegemony, and the willingness to fight for it. 

If violent human conflict is not hardwired as part of a Darwinian imperative, then what is?  Conflicts over territory, power, money, and influence are endemic in individuals, families, clans, tribes, and nations.  Why should anyone ever assume that they will ever disappear? 

History takes no sides - human events have never been moral or immoral, but amoral only, the result of swings and sways of power and influence.  'To the victors go the spoils', and in the give and take of geopolitical conflict the winners established their culture, their language, and their religion until they were the defeated.  Things have a way of sorting themselves out. 

In such an inevitable world, the advice of two preeminent thinkers is pertinent - that of Clausewitz who accepted the inevitability of war, and as such nations should always be prepared to fight; and that of Machiavelli who said war, while inevitable, should be fought only in cases of national self-interest. If competing forces are not looked at as evil, immoral, or anti-social but simply extending their national interests, they can be stopped, delayed, or mitigated.  Nations that understand this fundamental motivation will also always be ready for war. 

 

Those who preach world peace, Utopianism, and compassionate progressivism only do a disservice to nations who should be listening only to Clausewitz and Machiavelli.  When Josef Stalin was told that the Pope might contribute his moral authority to discussions concerning post-war Europe, he said, 'How many divisions does the Pope have?' He, Stalin, and his Red Army were the ones who defeated the invading Nazi forces at Stalingrad, not the Pope.  There is no room for moral questions in matters of war. 

Mao Zedong thought no differently. 'Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun', he said, always putting national interests, geopolitics, and territorialism first and foremost when it came to national sovereignty. 

It is revisionist historians, especially those educated and raised within the moralistic culture of today, who talk of Stalin and Mao's 'evil'; but they were only following their natural human inclinations.  More brutal than most?  Hardly.  Genghis Khan when he marched from the steppes to conquer the world from Japan to Europe left only mayhem and ruin in his wake.  Millions were slaughtered in his Mongol-Turk conquests.  

 

'Peace in our time' was the infamous statement of Neville Chamberlain whose idealism and political myopia grossly misjudged Adolf Hitler and the Nazi threat; but he has not been alone.  The same idealism and historical blindness have infected generations. 

Vicki Parker was a lifelong advocate for world peace and felt sure that it could be achieved.  If we all just reasoned together, she said, worked out our differences, sat around the table and listened, conflicts could be avoided.  She believed this heart and soul, but there was always that niggling doubt, memories from childhood

Ever since she was a girl she had been aware of the aggressive and territorial nature of the animals.  She was awakened in the middle of the night by hissing, screeching cats in the back alley.  In the morning her cat came in bloodied.  Patches of fur had been bitten off, and one day he had only half an ear.

Dogs were no different, and in those days they roamed as freely as cats. Most dogs had only one eye, half a tail, and a scarred snout.  They roamed in packs on Arch Street where most of the Chinese restaurants were, and fought over pieces of lemon chicken or stringy beef gristle. They fought among themselves for dominance, females, and food; and fought enemy packs who tried to invade their territory.

Blue jays are an invasive species, fearless of taking over other smaller birds hunting grounds; but Farley watched sparrows, starlings, and buntings dive bomb the jays when they entered the yard.  Squirrels chased each other and bit. Fighting fish were best sellers at the pet shop, and if left in the same water for too long they would both be ragged, torn, and dying. Vicki's best friend Filler liked birds and wanted a companion for his cockatiel. His parents bought him a budgie, and despite the difference in size, the budgie beat up on the cockatiel until he had plucked his plume and all his head feathers.

Territorialism, aggression, and brutality were the hallmarks of the animal kingdom. Ant colonies were the most impressive.  The battles between soldier ants of different competing colonies were fought to the death.  There were advance scouts, rear guards, forward phalanxes, and lines of supply.  They used implements, chemical warfare, and the use of overwhelming force.

Everywhere she looked there were pigeons with their throats ripped out, birds nests taken over and occupied by invading interlopers, gnawed squirrels, and swarms of dead ants.

Vicki never got over these childhood images; and even at her  most passionate about World Peace, the images of the insatiably barbaric animal kingdom were as vivid as ever; and the comparison with human societies could not be more appropriate and relevant. Human beings were just as aggressive, territorial, and warlike as ants, baboons, or piranhas. War and hostility were as integral to human society as reproduction.

Yet there was something morally wrong about America's blasting Tehran to smithereens, killing its leaders, destroying its arsenals, military infrastructure, and supply depots.  The sight of fiery explosions, clouds of billowing smoke, and the rain of debris was upsetting, and she tamped down all thoughts of human nature and her earlier convictions that aggression was at the very core of human expression.  This was untenable.  War was untenable; and so out into the streets she went, down Pennsylvania Avenue to the White House where she stood with her sisters defying the President. 

Where does such idealism come from? For one thing it is related to longevity and the expectation of living a long life.  When Tolstoy wrote War and Peace and recreated the Battle of Borodino where Russian and French troops fought a decisive, pitched battle, the life expectancy was only a little over thirty.  One expected to die young so why not go out in a blaze of glory rather than from an foot infected by stepping on a thorn? 

Life was valued differently then and human life was calculated within the same algorithmic context as animal life.  Jack London's 'Law of Club and Fang' or its corollary the law of tooth and claw were life's only permanent axioms, and in an age when death came sooner rather than later, they were embraced.  Why look for peace in a world designed, organized, structured for conflict. 

When Darwin arrived a number of decades later, these assumptions were codified.  Not only was conflict part of life, it was responsible for its evolution.  All the more reason to leave aside the airy nostrums of peace. 

In a world where we expect to live to ninety, of course we become risk averse and look at peace as a means of prolonging our lives; and so Vicki's remonstrances are understandable - vain and senseless given the trajectory of history and the fundamental nature of human activity, but expected. 

She felt good about demanding peace in our time and found no irony in advocating for it. Although the Iranian theocracy was no different from Naziism - the ayatollahs and Hitler had the same inspiration, motivation, and purpose - and the reasons for going to war should be clear enough, Vicki still resisted. 

'This can't be all there is', she said; but of course it was.  However, peace was not irrelevant or impossible. It could happen under either of the two enduring conditions, Pax Romana or the Cold War  but even those required the force of arms.  Nothing comes without a price. 

Idealism is another permanent feature of human life.  There has always been a tendency to ignore reality and believe in something detached from it.  Do this at your peril, is the lesson of course, but that did not deter Vicki who kept up the White House vigil until well after dark.